The My Little Pony Killer:Actually, if your child is acting up in public, then there *is* a second step after Calm the fark Down.

Yea, they lost me on a couple points. This reads more like "Hippy parenting". If your kid is being a jerk in public you aren't quickly and decisively addressing it you're doing it wrong. It doesn't matter if they are allowed to act that way because they have helicopter spoiling parents or hippy nonchalant parents.

profplump:Agnes Gonxha's Confidant: What do you do with children that just can't snap out of their selfishness. Say what you want, but a light pop to their buttcheeks seems to make some children wake up.

What do you do with adults that just can't snap out of their selfishness?

Here's a hint -- it's not "hit them".

You cut them out of your life. You do that with your kids and they call it child abandonment.

Satan's Bunny Slippers:dustygrimp: gopher321: Made the decision not to have any kids so you can do whatever you want in your life? Calm the f*ck down.

...

Oh wait. I'm already calm.

Yup, cuz it's all about you. Narcissistic douche.

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No one has to have kids. My problem is with people that break their arms patting themselves on the back for choosing not to have kids because it will cramp their style. Being so about yourself that you ignore the basic drive to propagate the species or have life beyond your own is narcissistic. Make the decision if you want to, just be aware that it doesn't make you smarter than anyone else, it just means you are a little bit broken.

whizbangthedirtfarmer:I was absolutely stunned at the competitiveness a lot of moms had with one another about their kids. I was a stay-at-home dad for the first year or so my son was around, and I ended up in the mom club. Maybe it was the devastating boredom of raising a baby, but damn, they went after each other.

amishkarl:profplump: Agnes Gonxha's Confidant: What do you do with children that just can't snap out of their selfishness. Say what you want, but a light pop to their buttcheeks seems to make some children wake up.

What do you do with adults that just can't snap out of their selfishness?

Here's a hint -- it's not "hit them".

You cut them out of your life. You do that with your kids and they call it child abandonment.

No one has to have kids. My problem is with people that break their arms patting themselves on the back for choosing not to have kids because it will cramp their style. Being so about yourself that you ignore the basic drive to propagate the species or have life beyond your own is narcissistic. Make the decision if you want to, just be aware that it doesn't make you smarter than anyone else, it just means you are a little bit broken.

profplump:Burr: It's almost like different children might have completely different personalities and may require differing parenting styles!

Adults are different and might have completely different personalities and may require completely different management styles. But none of those styles are allowed to including hitting, even for adults subject to reduced freedom or mental capacity. In fact we'd be particularly upset if we found that patients confined in a psychiatric facility were being hit to modify their behavior. Why it hitting acceptable for children?

Because it is the only consequence that some respond to. Yes, there a SMALL few number of children that magically do what they're told or fear punishment like having their video games taken away, but the majority do NOT respond to anything short of a couple of whacks on the ass with a belt (A COUPLE, not till their ass bleeds, you moron) and being stripped of all things "fun" and confined to their room like prison. Take a look at that kid that stole his grandmothers car a few years ago. That kid thinks he's hot shiat because of it and because there was no REAL punishment ("oh no, I'm grounded, but I've been on TV how many times?!"). You can take your coddling bullshiat and shove it up your ass. People like you are the reason we have to give trophies to failures and handouts to the lazy.

dustygrimp:Satan's Bunny Slippers: dustygrimp: gopher321: Made the decision not to have any kids so you can do whatever you want in your life? Calm the f*ck down.

...

Oh wait. I'm already calm.

Yup, cuz it's all about you. Narcissistic douche.

[encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com image 300x168]

No one has to have kids. My problem is with people that break their arms patting themselves on the back for choosing not to have kids because it will cramp their style. Being so about yourself that you ignore the basic drive to propagate the species or have life beyond your own is narcissistic. Make the decision if you want to, just be aware that it doesn't make you smarter than anyone else, it just means you are a little bit broken.

I'm "broken" because I recognized I'd be a shiatty parent? Wow, what a load of BS. There are choices to be made, and neither is better than the other. For sure those of us who chose to be child free are not broken.

If a child exhibits behavior puts itself in danger, or would put itself in danger later in life with the same actions, against your instructions, a spanking is necessary. You know how children learn from pain and mistakes, so they have to fall and have bruises to learn? Same thing here, except that the lesson would probably be fatal, so you must provide the surrogate lesson.

I'm talking running into the street, attempting to play with a gun, being violent, playing with the stove or fire unattended, running with a knife or other sharp object, or pointing one at someone.

It should be swift, non-excessive, not psychologically cruel, and never done with an object. Afterwards, you show them love, affection, and make sure they understand that they could have hurt themselves or others much worse than this. "Imagine what it would have felt like if...".

I only got spanked twice as a small child. Both times it was about health/life/well-being when I had not listened and been warned. Never for anything like just being naughty. Failure to spank could be an argument for neglect at that point. I still feel I earned it in those situations. The threat of spanking after that meant I also did not repeat those actions as well as listened much better to warnings. Definitely not abuse.

CrazyCracka420:As an expecting parent of our first child I'm going to go with the Native American approach and not going to encourage the baby to cry (by not responding to the crying). First time it starts crying it's going to be hung up on a tree out back for 30 minutes (obviously exaggerating, but I will do my best not to respond to crying, as to not encourage it).

Will pay plenty of attention to the child, but will not be a helicopter parent. I will teach them to be aware of their surroundings and will not be driving them everywhere. They can walk to the bus stop and home without my supervision. If we live close enough to the school, they can walk to the school and back without needing me to supervise or give them a ride to/from school.

I will not overfeed my child, I will do my best to feed them non-processed foods. I will encourage them to be active physically as well as mentally. I will not indoctrinate them with religion, I will allow them to be a child.

dustygrimp:Satan's Bunny Slippers: dustygrimp: gopher321: Made the decision not to have any kids so you can do whatever you want in your life? Calm the f*ck down.

...

Oh wait. I'm already calm.

Yup, cuz it's all about you. Narcissistic douche.

[encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com image 300x168]

No one has to have kids. My problem is with people that break their arms patting themselves on the back for choosing not to have kids because it will cramp their style. Being so about yourself that you ignore the basic drive to propagate the species or have life beyond your own is narcissistic. Make the decision if you want to, just be aware that it doesn't make you smarter than anyone else, it just means you are a little bit broken.

You don't think it is narcissistic to want to make little yous even though there are already too many people in the world?

sharpie_69:I'm "broken" because I recognized I'd be a shiatty parent? Wow, what a load of BS. There are choices to be made, and neither is better than the other. For sure those of us who chose to be child free are not broken.

Recognizing you'd be a shiatty parent /= not wanting to put down the X-box controller.

CrazyCracka420:As an expecting parent of our first child I'm going to go with the Native American approach and not going to encourage the baby to cry (by not responding to the crying). First time it starts crying it's going to be hung up on a tree out back for 30 minutes (obviously exaggerating, but I will do my best not to respond to crying, as to not encourage it).

Will pay plenty of attention to the child, but will not be a helicopter parent. I will teach them to be aware of their surroundings and will not be driving them everywhere. They can walk to the bus stop and home without my supervision. If we live close enough to the school, they can walk to the school and back without needing me to supervise or give them a ride to/from school.

I will not overfeed my child, I will do my best to feed them non-processed foods. I will encourage them to be active physically as well as mentally. I will not indoctrinate them with religion, I will allow them to be a child.

Oh man. I can't even begin to tell you how excited the rest of us are for you. I mean, I always pray that irresponsible drug addicted morons will have more kids. It's just BETTER when they spout of nonsense about how they expect it's going to be. Because then you can tell them how desperately wrong they are.

dustygrimp:sharpie_69: I'm "broken" because I recognized I'd be a shiatty parent? Wow, what a load of BS. There are choices to be made, and neither is better than the other. For sure those of us who chose to be child free are not broken.

Recognizing you'd be a shiatty parent /= not wanting to put down the X-box controller.

I honestly don't own a single game console... Never into it.

There are a multitude of reasons I know I'd make a terrible parent. There is no need to bring a child into the world that has a parent to doesn't want that child 110% in their life. It's not like the world is going to run out of people if I don't have kids.

elementcircle:profplump: Burr: It's almost like different children might have completely different personalities and may require differing parenting styles!

Adults are different and might have completely different personalities and may require completely different management styles. But none of those styles are allowed to including hitting, even for adults subject to reduced freedom or mental capacity. In fact we'd be particularly upset if we found that patients confined in a psychiatric facility were being hit to modify their behavior. Why it hitting acceptable for children?

Because it is the only consequence that some respond to. Yes, there a SMALL few number of children that magically do what they're told or fear punishment like having their video games taken away, but the majority do NOT respond to anything short of a couple of whacks on the ass with a belt (A COUPLE, not till their ass bleeds, you moron) and being stripped of all things "fun" and confined to their room like prison. Take a look at that kid that stole his grandmothers car a few years ago. That kid thinks he's hot shiat because of it and because there was no REAL punishment ("oh no, I'm grounded, but I've been on TV how many times?!"). You can take your coddling bullshiat and shove it up your ass. People like you are the reason we have to give trophies to failures and handouts to the lazy.

elementcircle:Because it is the only consequence that some respond to.

So why don't we hit impaired adults who have the behavior and mental capacity of children? Does being physically older magically impart them with some better response to "consequences"?

Also, you might consider not limiting your options for training and behavior modification to to punishment and deprivation. Those methods are not terribly effective on adults, and there's no reason to believe they're more effective on children.

amishkarl:You cut them out of your life. You do that with your kids and they call it child abandonment.

Well I'm against making parents keep children they don't want to care for. I'd be happy to help change child abandonment laws if you think they're a problem.

But I think you're probably skipping a step here. If your best friend started being a dick in scenario A you'd probably start with things like 1) asking him to stop 2) explaining why you don't think the behavior is tolerable 3) asking for the assistance of others in stopping the behavior 4) avoiding scenario A when your friend is around.

If you go right from "that's a selfish act that didn't stop immediately" to "I will never talk to this person again" or "I will hit this person until they stop" you're going to have trouble with relationships no matter the age of the other party.

Wow - you should probably CTFD. Do you not realize the hypocrisy of you chastising handouts for the lazy while trumpeting probably the laziest technique for disciplining a child? That's one reason I thought you might be trolling.

It might make them stop annoying you, at least for the time being. But you have no idea what it actually teaches them. You're hoping that they somehow draw a connection between your wrath and the behavior that annoyed you, but that's a pretty iffy outcome.

Imagine you're wondering down the street, doing your own thing, and your friend walks up and slaps you across the face. You look around to see what's happening, but it's not immediately clear to you why they hit you. You ask why they hit you and they offer and explanation, but their reply doesn't seem to apply to the immediate situation -- they're clearly unhappy with your behavior, but it's not clear to you what they want. What would your learn from that interaction? Would it make you less selfish?

Assume that later, eventually, you understand what they wanted, either through your own introspection and learning, or via further explanation. And let's assume you agree with their assessment -- that you were in the wrong. Would you then appreciate them hitting you as a "learning aid", or would you rather they had taken the time to explain without hitting?

Or assume that you never understand. For whatever reason you are incapable of grasping the concept that seems so important to your friend -- you lake the experience or education or even just the mental capacity. Would them repeatedly hitting you somehow make you understand what they want, or would you just being afraid that you'd f-up whatever it is they get mad about?

CrazyCracka420:As an expecting parent of our first child I'm going to go with the Native American approach and not going to encourage the baby to cry (by not responding to the crying). First time it starts crying it's going to be hung up on a tree out back for 30 minutes (obviously exaggerating, but I will do my best not to respond to crying, as to not encourage it).

Will pay plenty of attention to the child, but will not be a helicopter parent. I will teach them to be aware of their surroundings and will not be driving them everywhere. They can walk to the bus stop and home without my supervision. If we live close enough to the school, they can walk to the school and back without needing me to supervise or give them a ride to/from school.

I will not overfeed my child, I will do my best to feed them non-processed foods. I will encourage them to be active physically as well as mentally. I will not indoctrinate them with religion, I will allow them to be a child.

This reminded me of the Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin interview on SNL, which I can't find a video of on YouTube (as is generally the case because NBC is jerks about that sort of thing), but of which I was able to find a handy transcript of the relevant portion:

POEHLER AS COURIC: "What lessons have you learned from Iraq and how specifically, would you spread democracy abroad?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Specifically, we would make every effort possible to spread democracy abroad to those who want it."

elementcircle:whizbangthedirtfarmer: I was absolutely stunned at the competitiveness a lot of moms had with one another about their kids. I was a stay-at-home dad for the first year or so my son was around, and I ended up in the mom club. Maybe it was the devastating boredom of raising a baby, but damn, they went after each other.

Yeah, overly-nervous parents should calm down. On the other hand, the ones who let their children climb out of restaurant chairs, jump up and down, scream, run up and down the aisle, and hang onto other diners' tables and stare at them need to move, with their children, to another planet.

profplump:amishkarl: You cut them out of your life. You do that with your kids and they call it child abandonment.

Well I'm against making parents keep children they don't want to care for. I'd be happy to help change child abandonment laws if you think they're a problem.

But I think you're probably skipping a step here. If your best friend started being a dick in scenario A you'd probably start with things like 1) asking him to stop 2) explaining why you don't think the behavior is tolerable 3) asking for the assistance of others in stopping the behavior 4) avoiding scenario A when your friend is around.

If you go right from "that's a selfish act that didn't stop immediately" to "I will never talk to this person again" or "I will hit this person until they stop" you're going to have trouble with relationships no matter the age of the other party.

I expect most parents would try 1 and 2 before they got around to spanking as well. The OP didn't say to use spanking as a first resort. That was your own inference.

whizbangthedirtfarmer:I was absolutely stunned at the competitiveness a lot of moms had with one another about their kids. I was a stay-at-home dad for the first year or so my son was around, and I ended up in the mom club. Maybe it was the devastating boredom of raising a baby, but damn, they went after each other.

That's what intimidates me the most about becoming a parent: dealing with other parents. I don't want to fall into the trap of competitiveness. I was on the other side of that a bit; my mom would constantly brag about what I was doing, and I'm pretty sure it only made other people resent her--and me.

I'm pregnant and due in about two weeks, and I have two cousins-in-law with due dates within three weeks of me. We're all having our first children. (We also all announced at the Christmas dinner, which made things...interesting.) I can foresee the family making constant comparisons between them because they're always going to be the same age. I've made it a point to not even compare pregnancy symptoms lest it become a game of one-upmanship. I suspect one of them feels the same way, but another one keeps Facebook messaging us about all the great baby advice she's finding and what she heard the best products are and blah blah blah... Yeah, I'm just preparing myself to let that roll off my back for years to come.

profplump:What do you do with adults that just can't snap out of their selfishness?

Here's a hint -- it's not "hit them".

I remove them from my life.

dustygrimp:Being so about yourself that you ignore the basic drive to propagate the species or have life beyond your own is narcissistic

.

The basic drive is to fark. Human beings don't have an estrous cycle, meaning our drive to fark isn't tied entirely to breeding. We also have the conscious ability to choose whether or not to reproduce, unlike any other animal on the planet. If human beings desire to fark was only about reproduction, we'd only be able to fark during times when reproducing was possible. We wouldn't have a 'sex drive' when we're not fertile.

This 'basic urge to propagate the species' that you're talking about isn't a biological human reality. I don't feel any need or desire to reproduce. There's no part of me that looks at a baby and wants one of those. I'm not 'ignoring' some internal need or drive, because I don't have any drive to reproduce. I never did. No 'ignoring'. No 'denying'. No willful opposition to a self-compelled psychological or physical need. It isn't like food, water, or air, and there's nothing about not wanting kids that means forcing yourself to ignore your physiology.

Forty-Two:whizbangthedirtfarmer: I was absolutely stunned at the competitiveness a lot of moms had with one another about their kids. I was a stay-at-home dad for the first year or so my son was around, and I ended up in the mom club. Maybe it was the devastating boredom of raising a baby, but damn, they went after each other.

That's what intimidates me the most about becoming a parent: dealing with other parents. I don't want to fall into the trap of competitiveness. I was on the other side of that a bit; my mom would constantly brag about what I was doing, and I'm pretty sure it only made other people resent her--and me.

I'm pregnant and due in about two weeks, and I have two cousins-in-law with due dates within three weeks of me. We're all having our first children. (We also all announced at the Christmas dinner, which made things...interesting.) I can foresee the family making constant comparisons between them because they're always going to be the same age. I've made it a point to not even compare pregnancy symptoms lest it become a game of one-upmanship. I suspect one of them feels the same way, but another one keeps Facebook messaging us about all the great baby advice she's finding and what she heard the best products are and blah blah blah... Yeah, I'm just preparing myself to let that roll off my back for years to come.

I will say this from my perspective: our local "mom's club" was built almost entirely on the concept of one-upmanship and showing off. The more level-headed women who did things like buy clothes at regular prices (or GASP! the thrift store), or didn't work hard to insert at list a small amount of bragging into their everyday sessions were usually a) not in the club, or b) kept at the fringes. In the center of the club was about six or seven women who did little more than vamp for one another and brag non-stop about their kids. So, yes, it is lonely to have a kid and also have common sense and individuality.

meat0918:markfara: The My Little Pony Killer: Actually, if your child is acting up in public, then there *is* a second step after Calm the fark Down.

And a third, and a fourth, etc.

Right out to the car.

It only has to be done once really. Just follow through, and they (generally) stop.

Absolutely... Had to do it once... Once...

3 year old was told to stay close to me while we went into mcdonalds. He tried to run to the play area while we were in line at the counter, I grabbed his jacket. He wiggled out of it and ran to the play area. I followed, scooped him up into a fireman's carry and walked directly back out to the car. By the time he realized what had happened, he was already buckled into his carseat.

That night when mom got home and asked him 'What happened when Dad took you to McDonalds?' His response was "I went upside down!"

The parenting was a lot better when moms could stay at home instead of joining the work force. Raising children is very consuming and difficult, it takes a commitment that parents are not fulfilling at an increasing pace.